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Nelson and fellow former “Mystery Science Theater 3000” stars Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, will mock the 1997 sci-fi film “Starship Troopers” Thursday for “RiffTrax Live: Starship Troopers,” which will broadcast live in theaters across the country, including Oklahoma.

Michael J. Nelson relishes the chance to occasionally emerge from his comedy cave and mingle with the rest of humanity, especially the portion that shares his love of mocking big, dumb movies featuring massive alien bugs, bombastic intergalactic warfare and the impossibly handsome Casper Van Dien.

So, the writer/comedian best known for playing a space-bound version of himself on the beloved television series “Mystery Science Theater 3000” (aka MST3K) is looking forward to Thursday's live performance and broadcast of “RiffTrax Live: Starship Troopers.”

“During the writing ... it's very meticulous and it's very much a bunker mentality to sort of crouch down and you write these gags. And you're always wondering like, ‘Am I a madman? Am I a monk in a cave, like writing this stuff and hoping that future generations will see it?'” Nelson said in a phone interview last week. “Then you get out and you get to perform them in front of actual humans and, you know, you climb out of your cave and that's the fun part. It's like, ‘Oh, yeah, OK, this is actually is sort of a worthwhile thing.' It's fun to interact with humans.”

He and fellow MST3K alumni Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett are “riffing,” or providing live wisecracking commentary, along with a special screening of “Starship Troopers” on Thursday night at the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville, Tenn. Their performance will be beamed live to about 600 movie theaters across the country, including several Oklahoma cinemas.

“There's something really infectious about doing it in these live environments. Just being with other people, the laughter really grows ... and sort of weird things happen and surprise you.”

Long career

Nelson, 48, is a perhaps a bit surprised but definitely delighted that he has made an almost 25-year career out of mocking movies. In 1989, the Illinois native joined MST3K, becoming a staff writer, later advancing to head writer and eventually taking over as host when creator Joel Hodgson left.

While the MST3K storyline focused on awful old B-movies mad scientists would use to break the minds of a stranded spaceman and his robot pals — the kind of films the low-budget show could easily get the rights to televise — Nelson broadened his movie-mocking horizons with RiffTrax. He and his cohorts have produced downloadable MP3 audio commentaries of recent blockbusters and Oscar contenders that fans can sync up to their own copies of the films, along with DVD, Blu-ray and video-on-demand releases riffing those familiar bad old feature and short films.

“Like people say, ‘Why do you hate “The Lord of the Rings?'” We don't hate ‘The Lord of the Rings' at all. We all like it a lot; however, there are elements to it that can be silly or made fun of, and it's fun to do that.”

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by Brandy McDonnell

Entertainment Reporter

Brandy McDonnell, also known by her initials BAM, writes stories and reviews on movies, music, the arts and other aspects of entertainment. She is NewsOK’s top blogger: Her 4-year-old entertainment news blog, BAM’s Blog, has notched more than 1...